


Autonomy

by 01123581321345589



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Gen, Guns, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Russian Roulette, Suicide Attempt, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-05 15:22:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18368756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/01123581321345589/pseuds/01123581321345589
Summary: Connor has developed a tic, but eventually an episode leads into what seems like a flashback. Hank finds him and convinces him to get help.Edit: The Author went from writing nothing for 6 months, to writing 21K works in 2 weeks, and as a result is currently suffering from burnout. Normal service to be resumed shortly.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to write this at 5am. What am I doing with my life?

Connor felt his eyes blink involuntarily and his head twist just a fraction of an inch.

 

As quick as he felt it, it happened again. And again.

 

 He put his arm up and tried to act like he was running his hand through his hair, discreetly using his hand, and then his wrist to cover the LED on the side of his head, as he was certain it was active and red. He was quite fond of his LED, and felt that it was part of who he was, but he did wish sometimes that it didn’t give away his errors, malfunctions, and difficulties. He was almost certain he’d never be able to play poker without wearing a beanie.

 

He tried to focus on that thought, replayed some scenarios in which he wore poker with, or without a beanie. Tried to focus on the statistical likelihood of successes and failures depending on the choice of attire. Running the statistics for each possible hand.

 

His head jerked again and an error popped up in his vision:

 

**_ (4) Unexpected Motion Detected: Atlanto-Axial Region! No environmental stimulus detected. Recalibrate? _**

His eyes clamped shut and then opened again.

 

**_ (4) Unexpected Motion Detected: Orbicularis Oculi! No environmental stimulus detected. Recalibrate? _**

Connor had experienced this a few times now. In humans he knew it would be described as a tic, but it didn’t make sense for him to have this problem. He curled his hand into a fist in his hair.

“Shit!” He whispered. Leaning forward and putting his left hand onto the computer in front of him. Locking his screen.

“You OK, Connor?” Hank asked, looking across the desk to his colleague. Connor made a slight grimacing face and tilted his head, hoping that would be enough to hide the twitching.

“Would you believe me if I told you I had a headache?” he said, a hint of a whine in his voice, sounding slightly pitiful. Hank sighed.

“You need to recalibrate again? You already did that this morning! Whatever happened to the days when you recalibrated by flicking that coin around?” Hank leaned across the desks, “Are you sure you don’t need to see some sort of specialist? If a computer needed to calibrate as often as you do, it would usually be down to a hardware fault.”

Connor smiled gently. “I appreciate your concern, Lieutenant, but I’m fine. I think it’s a software bug, I’m sure there will be an update to fix it.” He lied, trying to reassure Hank.

Hank leaned back into his chair. “Fine. And take your hand out of your damned hair. If you’re so worried when your LED is red, why don’t you remove it like Markus?”

Connor ignored the comment, though he did remove his hand from his head as he stood up. His eyes screwed up and his head yanked itself violently to the side. He steadied himself against the desk for a second.

 

**_ (5) Unexpected Motion Detected: Atlanto-Axial Region! No environmental stimulus detected. Recalibrate? _**

**_ (5) Unexpected Motion Detected: Orbicularis Oculi! No environmental stimulus detected. Recalibrate? _**

 

“Jesus, Connor! Are you sure you’re OK?!” Hank jumped up from his seat.

“I’m fine, Lieutenant!” Connor shot back defensively. He strode away from the Lieutenant, across the office, and slid into the bathroom.

 

He locked himself into one of the cubicles and sat on top of the toilet lid, slumping forwards so that his elbows were on his knees and his head in his hands.

 

He involuntarily jerked again, accepting the recalibration prompts.

**_ Recalibration Initializing…**

**3…**

**2…**

**_Hello, Connor. __ **

“Oh… No! No way!” he shouted aloud to himself. His vision swirled and the cubicle faded away, leaving him in the last place he wanted to see himself. The Zen Garden.

 

The weather seemed fine. He saw two figures not too far from him. He stepped forward and the environment glitched around him. Zooming him across the terrain until he was right beside the two figures. It made him feel unsteady and he unexpectedly dropped to his knees.

 

Amanda stood there talking to another figure. Another Connor.

 

Or not. He scanned the Connor, to find that the serial number matched his own. This wasn’t another Connor, this was _him_. He quickly realised that he wasn’t really in the Zen Garden. This was a simulation of a past event.

 

Connor knew what memories were, and he knew this was different. When he recalled a memory, he never left the environment he was currently in.

 

This was different. He wondered if he was still in the cubicle of the DPD bathroom, but everything around him told him he was in the Zen Garden. He tried to scan the environment but nothing happened. He tried to scan himself, but again, nothing. It was like his entire system was offline, and yet somehow, he was still here.

 

He pushed himself back up onto his feet. He watched himself talking to Amanda. He seemed so cool, calculated, neutral. He felt uncomfortable looking at himself.

 

He heard nothing. He tried to check his audio processor, but again, no status shows. He watched their mouths intently, before realising that again, any lip-reading skill he had must have been another skill that was part of his programming.

 

He feels like his chest is going to explode from shame. He knows he’s listening to her advice, and to her instructions, and that he’s going to do the wrong thing.

 

“Don’t listen to her Connor, she’s wrong about everything!” he says pointlessly. He can hear himself, and so he realises that his audio processor is working, but there is no reaction from the two in front of him. He knows they can’t hear him. This is a past event, it wouldn’t make sense for them to hear him, and yet he can’t stop himself from desperately trying to interject into their muted discussion.

 

“Connor, I’m telling you, don’t listen to her, please!” he shouts. He leans forward to grab him. A red shield surrounds his counterpart, hazy and glitchy like the wall he saw before his imminent deviancy.

 

He remembers how he got through that wall and begins beating on it.  Cracks appear piece by piece and eventually it shatters. The pieces fly towards him and he flinches, blinking.

 

**_ Recalibration Complete. No errors found. _**

He opens his eyes and the wall of the cubicle is opposite him. He finds himself curled up, lying on his side on the floor, the door still locked, by his head.

 

He stands up and brushes himself down, trying not to think of the unseen contents of the floor. He knew he could scan it, but he just didn’t want to know.

 

He checked his internal clock. It’d been 7 minutes. His recalibrations normally only took 3. He didn’t want to concern Hank. Hank would pressure him into seeing a specialist again and he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to be poked and prodded by a specialist. He didn’t want to have his parts examined. He didn’t want to be taken apart and viewed as individual components. The entire concept reminded him of the fact that he wasn’t _real_ , he was still just a machine.

 

He stepped out of the cubicle and towards the sink, turning on the taps and washing at his hands, not wanting to inadvertently pass something ugly from the bathroom floor to one of his colleagues.

 

He splashed water onto his face. He didn’t want the germs on his face either. His colleagues probably wouldn’t touch it, and it wasn’t going to make him sick, but it was still… Somehow disgusting to him.

 

The coolness of the water brought the temperature of his face down marginally, and somehow that made him feel calmer. The knot he hadn’t even noticed he was feeling in his abdomen seemed to ease off. He felt calmer somehow. His LED was back to a steady blue.

 

“See, that time, when you recalibrated, I could actually hear your fans going. That ain’t right, Connor.”

Connor swung around suddenly and made a yelping sound. “Hank?!”

“If it was a software bug, it’d be happening to other androids too, but it isn’t, is it?”

The door of the cubicle beside the one he’d been in slowly opened. Hank sat on the toilet seat. Connor studied the look on his face. Concern. He looked concerned.

“Also, if you’re going to lie on the floor, there are far cleaner floors to lie on. Alternatively, there is an old breakroom two floors down that no one uses anymore with an old sofa in it. I hide there sometimes when I want a nap. Don’t tell anyone though, or they’ll all want a go!” he said, chuckling. His mouth turned upwards at the edges in a very strained smile, but the eyes still looked concerned.

“Thank you.” Connor spoke quietly, trying to play it cool. “I’ll remember that.”

Hank stood up and took a couple of steps towards Connor. Connor could almost feel the heat of Hank’s breath on his face. “Of course, when you go down there, you need to know you’re going to make it there before you collapse.” He said, in a low tone.

Connor arched an eyebrow and tried to find the words to reassure Hank. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. Hank acted like he didn’t notice that Connor was trying to speak, and continued to talk.

“Because if you’d known you were going to fall on the floor, you wouldn’t have picked the bathroom, would you, Con?”

“It’s… It’s not like that!”

“Connor, I’m not fucking stupid!” Hank raised his voice at the android. “You’ve been staying at my house for weeks now. I can tell the second you go into stasis because your stupid fucking program makes it sound like you’re heavy breathing! You simulate fucking sleep just to make me feel comfortable, and you don’t even know you’re doing it!”  
“Lieutenant, I- “  
“And I know when you wake up because you fucking yawn, like a fucking human!” he paced away from his colleague.

“Lieutenant…”  
“But when you came in here, I knew something was _wrong_. I came in and you were in there, and I heard you slide off the toilet and hit the floor. Do you know what I heard after that?!”  
“I don’t know, Hank.”  
“Of course you don’t! Because at first, I heard _nothing_. And that was the scariest fucking moment. For a second, I thought you were dead! There was no simulated breathing at all! I had never even noticed it until you stopped doing it!” Hank stopped, realizing that he was shouting. He was momentarily grateful for the adequate sound-proofing in the bathrooms.

Connor didn’t say anything. He looked at the Lieutenant, not knowing what to say.

“Then you started whirring like the fan inside an old car when the sun is out.” Hank scratched the back of his neck. “I didn’t know if you were going to be fine, but I knew you weren’t dead… A couple of minutes later you got back up and here we are.”

 

Connor leaned back against the sinks and run a hand up to the back of his neck, moving his gaze to the ceiling. “I must have hard-rebooted unexpectedly. I’m sorry. I’m supposed to warn people nearby if I do that. It can be alarming if you don’t know what’s happening.”

“Hard-rebooted?”  
“Yes. I fully shut down, and then booted back up. Unlike a basic reset, there is a moment at which there is no power running at all.”

Hank tilted his head to one side. “So, you died for a second?”

Connor shook his head, looking back from the ceiling to Hank. “Death would be a shutdown with no prompt to boot up again. This is more like… Like losing consciousness.” He said.

Connor was not used to regretting his words as soon as they had left him, but he didn’t get a chance to dwell on the sensation.

“Oh… Oh well that’s alright then! It’s just unconsciousness!” Hank’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“I didn’t mean that! It’s… It’s not necessarily constructive to try and compare everything I do with a human equivalent. I am _not_ a real fucking person, Hank!” Connor shouted towards the end. Desperate to drop this conversation, he didn’t _want_ Hank to be concerned for him. He just wanted everything to be OK.

 

Hank stayed silent, the anger from his face left. He looked hurt. Connor faltered.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout at you.”

“You _are_ a real person, Connor.”  
“No.” Connor looked at the floor. “I may be a deviant, I may have rights and free-will now. But I am still not a real person.”  
“I don’t think you understand” Hank growled, grabbing behind the androids head and butting their heads together softly. “You are not human, but you are a person.”

Connor shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not real…”  
“Connor, lots of humans out there believe in a God… Hell, some people believe in many Gods… They insist that they are real, despite no evidence. You can’t touch them, you can’t see them, you can’t hear them. If someone were to tell you they believed a God is real, would you tell them that he isn’t?”  
Connor moved away from the Lieutenant and his eyes widened. “No! Everyone has a right to religious belief. It would be unacceptable of me to do that. It’s disrespectful to the individual.”

Hank chuckled. “Well, I believe you’re real. And unlike some people with their Gods, I can actually touch you, see you, and hear you. So, stop fucking disrespecting me, you fucking asshole!”

 

Connor managed a small smile for Hank.

“We’re taking you to a specialist.” Hank stated.

Connor’s face fell, he looked pleadingly at Hank. “I don’t need to go to a specialist. I’m fine!”

“Oh yeah, sure, and next time this happens, you don’t boot back up. You don't _want_ to go to a specialist, Connor, but you do _need_ to.”

Connor’s LED flickered yellow, then red, then yellow again. He put his hand through his hair again to cover it, bunching it up as he made a fist. He sighed and stared at the floor again.

“Jesus Christ, Connor… You’re actually panicking. You’re an android that’s afraid of the doctor!” Hank said, half-joking, half-serious. “What are you afraid of?”

Connor sighed and put his hands on the sink behind him. “Do you promise you won’t laugh? I’ve experienced embarrassment now, and I think it’d be easier for me to manage the embarrassment if you don’t laugh.” He tilted his head to face Hank.

Hank shrugged and nodded.  
Connor’s LED continued to flash between yellow and red, he opened his mouth, and closed it again after nothing came out. He took a deep breath and tried again. “If I go to a specialist, they’re going to want to examine various biocomponents. They’re going to take things away that are a part of me, and if they can’t find a solution, they’re going to replace it with a part that is new, and not me. They’re going to touch me, and take me apart, and lay bits of me out on a table, and examine them like I’m a machine… And I am a machine, but… I don’t… I am a machine, but- ”  
“But, you’re also a person, with a sense of self, and autonomy?” Hank suggested.

The LED circled yellow a couple of times before returning to a steady blue. “Yes.”

 

A silence sat in the air for a minute.

Connor opened his mouth “It’s stupid of- “  
“No.” Hank interrupted. “No, it isn’t.” Hank scratched at his beard at his jawline.

“Maybe...” Connor trailed off. “Maybe if you come with me, and stay there with me, it’ll be easier. Seeing you will remind me that someone believes I’m a person, and I’m an individual. Could you do that?” Connor suddenly felt hot around his neck and felt his face flush. “Stupid suggestion, I’m sorry, forget- “

“I’ll do it.”

“Oh.” Connor looked stunned for a moment. “Then… Then I’ll go.”

Hank patted him on the shoulder “Good. Go get in the fucking car. I’ll get my stuff from my desk.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a fuck-ton of technobabble, IDK if I like it. I may come back and change it later.

Connor barely took any visual input on the way into the specialist’s store. He did notice that the door said “Cyberlife Certified” on a sticker on the door, as it slid open. He found himself unexpectedly relieved that it wasn’t an official Cyberlife facility, and was certain that Hank had chosen this place specifically for that reason.

 

The air inside was strong with that new-car scent. The scent that most technology had when it was first bought. The scent Connor had never really noticed before, but now realised was also the scent of himself when he was first commissioned into each new body. It made him feel increasingly uncomfortable, and the more it made him uncomfortable, the more he felt that he was drowning in it, like his olfactory system was screaming at him, making it hard to pay attention to what Hank was saying at the service desk.

 

Hank patted his shoulder and Connor snapped back to the room.

“You OK there, buddy? Your little light is going crazy there.”

Connor quickly covered his LED and cursed. “I really don’t like the smell in here!” he blurted out. It came out louder than he has intended, and the service desk worker gave him a quizzical look before returning to their work. He dropped to a whisper. “This was a bad idea, Hank. I want to go home.”

 

“The smell in the repair room is much less upsetting.” A calm and unusually accented voice spoke out from behind him. Connor turned around, and a gentleman gestured to them to follow him through the door from which he’d appeared. “You’re not the first android to comment on the smell. It’s the spray Cyberlife put on all their products, so the store is quite pungent because of the stock.” He ushered them both into a side room. “One can only hope that Cyberlife will consider making a change to the smell, now that the product has become their main clientele.”

Connor stiffened slightly. “I’m not a product!”

“No, you’re not.” The gentleman replied. “I apologise if that was inferred, it was not my intention. Please take a seat. I’m George, your specialist today.”

 

Connor had to admit that, whilst the sweet aroma in this room was still extremely artificial, it was significantly less distressing to his senses than the other scent had been. George sat down on a stool and gestured towards the examination bench. Connor stepped tentatively towards it. Hank stood just inside the door and watched him.

“So, your friend here tells us you’ve been having some issues recalibrating.” The specialist said, picking up a tablet with some wires hanging out. “I’m going to need to check your error log. Skin down, please.”

Connor hesitated. “I… I can’t! Not in front of Hank!”

“I can step outside for a moment Connor- “

“No!” Connor yelped. “Please. Don’t go.”

The specialist tilted their head to one side, then onto the other, thoughtfully.

“I just need access to your connectors for my device. Can you give me access _just_ to your port side?” he hazarded. “I know this seems so intrusive, think of it like a stethoscope.”

Connor lifted his shirt, and the skin faded away around his side, exposing the harshly white chassis beneath. George plugged himself into a port in Connor’s exposed side and his device lit up and text started scrolling up the screen.

 

“RK800, Serial 313 248 317… Connor Model?” George mumbled to himself. “Never seen a Connor Model before.”

Connor interjected, “It is my understanding that I was a prototype. There was another one of me, but he is… No longer around.” He said, picking his words carefully.

“Fortunately, it seems your parts are all available, and were used in more than one model.” George said, attempting to reassure Connor. “However, some of this software is pretty bespoke. If there are any corruptions, I may not be able to reinstall them.”

Connor shrugged. “I’ve not had any issues with my software, and I still seem to be able to backup regularly. Assuming I can keep my chassis in order, I will have no issues being able to run a diagnostic and self-repair any skills.” He slumped a little on the bench, “But, I’d really rather not replace any of my biocomponents unless they are completely irreparable.”

“Well, if you can’t afford to replace a component, we do a financial scheme, where it can be paid in instalments.” The specialist suggested.

“It’s not money.” Connor stated, thinking about the ridiculous amount of backpay he had received when the DPD kept him on post-revolution. The revolution had already caused the wage laws to be changed to include androids, and when payroll had set it up, it had been deemed _only fair_ that he was also paid for the work done since the date of his commission. “It’s more of a _personal_ matter, I guess.”

George raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “I’ll do what I can.”

 

The screen scrolled for a while, George eventually tapped at the screen a few times, settling on a particular screen and reading silently. Hank shifted nervously near the door.

He coughed to break the silence. “Is it bad?”

George inhaled deeply. “Well… There are two regions that keep requesting recalibration. It looks like it started a few weeks ago, happening every couple of days, and increasing in frequency to a daily occurrence, and today it happened twice.”  
“That is correct.” Connor stated. “It started just after the revolution; I believe it may have been an effect of becoming deviant. I thought it would settle in time, but it hasn’t.”

“Interesting…” George mumbled into his screen. “During the last recalibration, there was a massive power surge, resulting in a complete system reboot.”

Connor rolled his eyes, “I know this already, I _can_ see my own error log- “  
“You didn’t tell me about no fucking power surge!” Hank interrupted. “And don’t be so fucking rude. He’s trying to help you!”

Connor wriggled uncomfortably on the examination bench. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. And you were so worried about my reboot, that I didn’t want to worry you about the power surge.”

George looked to Hank, and then back to Connor, “It could have been a short in one of your biocomponents causing some feedback.” He hesitated for a second. “I can run a diagnostic on those areas, try and trace where this fault is originating.”

 

The room grew painfully quiet as George tapped away on his screen. Connor tapped his fingers against the desk, trying to focus on anything except the knowledge that someone was reading the very intimate details of his body parts right in front of him.

Eventually George broke the silence.

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

He sounded frustrated.

“I’ve run a full diagnostic on your Atlanto…” He paused and looked to Hank and decided to use plainer terms, “on your neck and eyelids. I’m not getting any errors whatsoever. In fact, if it wasn’t for the extensive error log confirming that the error has been occurring regularly, I’d have said you had a clean bill of health!”

“That’s ridiculous!” Hank jumped in. “You must be able to find something!”

Connor looked confused. His LED cycling yellow, occasionally flickering red. He felt his stress levels rising.

“So, you’re saying this can’t be fixed. It’s just going to keep happening and I’m going to have to keep recalibrating? How long until the recalibration just fails, and I shut down forever?”

George looked sympathetic, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t say for certain. Another couple of weeks, perhaps a month?”

Hank opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again, looking at the expression of desperation on Connor’s face. He had no idea how to respond to the news.

Connor’s stress spiked even higher. He couldn’t keep recalibrating like this, slowly turning into a mess of tics and then dying, it was undignified! Human’s would have medication for this sort of thing. That wasn’t something that would work for an android.

 

His eyes jammed themselves shut, and then opened. His neck yanked violently.

“Shit!” He pushed himself back fully onto the bench until he was able to sit with his legs crossed in front of him. “Shit, it’s happening again… Hank. I don’t want to reboot!” He leaned onto his lap and looked down just in time for another tic. He sounded desperate. “Please… What do I do?! I don’t want to reboot! I don’t want to go back there. I can’t! I- “

Hank lurched forwards and put a hand on either of the android’s shoulders. “What? Go where? You’re not going anywhere, you’re right here with us.”

George stared at his screen.

 

**_ (5) Unexpected Motion Detected: Atlanto-Axial Region! No environmental stimulus detected. Recalibrate? _**

**_ (5) Unexpected Motion Detected: Orbicularis Oculi! No environmental stimulus detected. Recalibrate? _**

“It seems like something is happening. I just _can’t_ pinpoint the source!”

“Connor! Connor focus on me! Everything is going to be alright! You’re not going anywhere.”

 

**_ (6) Unexpected Motion Detected: Atlanto-Axial Region! No environmental stimulus detected. Recalibrate? _**

**_ (6) Unexpected Motion Detected: Orbicularis Oculi! No environmental stimulus detected. Recalibrate? _**

Connor looked up to the Lieutenant, shaking and twitching.

“I made so many mistakes. I don’t want to see them again. I don’t want to go back!”

 

**_ (9) Unexpected Motion Detected: Atlanto-Axial Region! No environmental stimulus detected.**

**(9) Unexpected Motion Detected: Orbicularis Oculi! No environmental stimulus detected.**

**Forcing Recalibration… _**

“Con, you’re going to be right here with us the whole time.”

 

**_ Recalibration Initializing…**

**3…**

**2…**

**_Hello, Connor. __ **

****

Connor’s whole body went rigid and he stared off into the middle distance. Hank shook him a couple times.

“Connor? Con, you with me?”

 

No response. Connor’s breathing seemed short and sharp. If it weren’t for the breathing, and the flickering red disc on his temple, Hank would have thought he had shut down again.

“George, what’s happening?”

“Well, it looks like some kind of self-executing file is taking up an insane amount of processing.” George said, staring at his screen. “It initialised out of nowhere. Literally _nowhere._ It didn’t seem to even exist until his stress levels started to spike. At least, if it did it wasn’t visible, even to Connor.” George continued to study the screen carefully. “The two tics seem to be a result of an excess of power distribution caused by the system trying to deny the file from opening in the background. Connor wouldn’t even be actively aware of this happening unless he were to be watching his background activities at the time.” He scratched his head anxiously. “Even if he did see it happening. There’s nothing he could do to stop it from running, it reattempts with more and more power until the power spike is big enough to override his system and brute-force itself into executing.”

“So how to we fix this?” Hank asked, concern clearly on his voice.

“It would be too dangerous to try and kill the file while it’s running. It has disabled all unnecessary biocomponents and processes one by one and seems to have overwritten all permissions to make certain that the only file that can reactivate them is this rogue file.” His screen flickered and something made a distinctive pinging sound as it went blank. George dropped his device and shouted out in a panic.

“Step back, he’s going to surge!”

Hank let go of his friend’s shoulders and took a step back. The android jolted and then dropped to one side. His breathing stopped.

 

George fumbled around in a drawer and pulled out an identical device. He switched it with the previous one, which had seemingly fried just before the surge.

 

George’s screen sat dormant but for a blinking icon for a few seconds. Then data started scrolling on his screen. A fan somewhere inside Connor started working overtime, whirring audibly.

“I’m sorry for shouting, but a surge that massive could give quite a nasty electrical burn if you’re in contact with his body.” George explained. “All biocomponents and processes are reactivating, I can only assume the power surge is a result of the rogue file reactivating everything at once, causing a system overload. The surge caused a considerable core temperature spike, which explains the fan working so hard. He’s slowly coming back online now.”

Hank crouched to the bench just as Connor blinked.

“Hank?” He looked at the Lieutenant, who seemed to be showing the same look of concern as before. A message came into his vision to notify him that he was on 23% power reserves. The surges were burning up a significant portion of his energy. At the end of a busy day, he’d often still have 60-70% power. He would need more than a couple hours in stasis to get back to optimal levels. His LED remained a steady red glow, which he knew wasn’t going to go away until he was able to go into stasis and charge up.

“Welcome back, Connor. Where did you go, buddy?” Hank spoke softly. Connor pushed his upper body up off of the bench and placed both feet firmly on the floor. He gripped the bench tightly and tucked his head down.

“I- “

Connor faltered. He wanted to tell them he was back in the Zen Garden. Watching himself talk to Amanda again. He desperately wanted to say it, but he could already feel the stress levels rising, just _thinking_ about talking about it, and in that moment, he knew he couldn’t say it out loud.

“I can’t talk about it.” He sighed. “I’m sorry Hank, please believe me when I say that I _wish_ I could tell you. I just don’t think I can do it without causing my system to repeat the experience.”

Hank turned to George, who sat in his seat looking puzzled.

“Hey, are you able to kill that file now? Like, delete it or something?” He asked. George pulled a grimace.

“I was going to, but it’s gone. I can’t find it anywhere. I’m sorry. I tried to find a trace of it, but it’s almost like it was never there.” He said. Showing his screen to Hank, not that Hank could make head nor tail of the words on the screen.

“Shit.”

Connor looked confused. “This is all a file?”

George took the time to explain to Connor what had been happening whilst he was unresponsive.

“So, does that mean it’s going to come back again?” Hank asked.

“It’s likely. Connor’s system has a reconstruction ability that behaves similarly. It creates a file to reconstruct a past event using all the raw data available, then when it no longer serves a purpose and the useful data has been taken from the reconstruction, it self-deletes… I think this is a similar thing, except for some reason, Connor isn’t aware that he is constructing the file, the amount of raw data is phenomenal and overloads his system until everything shuts down, no new relevant data file is created, so I can only assume that there is no useful new data from the file, and then it quits suddenly, causing a surge as everything that shut down is given power again.” George rubbed his chin. “I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but Connor, you said before you rebooted that you ‘didn’t want to go back’, would I be correct in assuming that you’re experiencing some kind of reconstruction of a past event?”

Connor nodded but said nothing.

“And this started just after the end of the revolution?”

Again, Connor nodded and remained silent.

“Were you involved in the revolution in any way?”

Another nod. Hank spoke up.

“He was recruited as my partner to hunt down deviants before the revolution began. Long story short, he became deviant, and ended up being involved in the success of the revolution.”

It was George’s turn to nod. He swivelled his seat closer to Connor and inhaled deeply.

“I’m sure this didn’t come without its share of negative experiences.”

Connor nodded again, feeling his stress rising slightly. “Please, please don’t ask me to- “  
“I’m not going to.” George reassured. “I’m going to say something completely ridiculous, but if my theory is correct, it could help you.”

Connor looked at him expectantly.

“Have you considered that you may have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and are experiencing flashbacks?”

Connor tried to laugh but it came out wrong, sounding more like a hiccough.

“I _can’t_ have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’m not human!”

“Well, until recently you couldn’t have emotions. If you can experience emotions, I think it makes sense that you can experience trauma. You were never built to experience either of those things, so you don’t have any skills to deal with those experiences.” George tried to speak gently.

“I guess it would make sense.” Connor leaned his head onto his own shoulder. “It doesn’t provide a solution, though.”

“Not one that I can fix for you. I think you need to find a therapist that is open to taking on an android. That may not be an easy feat, but I believe I can do _something_ to alleviate some of the pressure, in the hopes of buying you some time.” George put his hands behind his head and tilted his head at Connor. “I warn you though. It’s risky. There’s a chance that it may not work at all, and if it does work, there’s a chance that you could blow a couple of biocomponents. I’d be able to replace them of course, but I know you’re not necessarily comfortable with that.”

“If it works, but you have to replace those parts, will I still be able to buy some more time?” Connor asked, a vague hint of optimism in his voice.

“I believe so.”  
“What is it that you plan to do?”

“I want to change the permissions on your Audio Processor and Vocal Processor. I believe if I lock those permissions up somehow, and force them into a permanently active state, I can successfully stop this file from disabling those parts, meaning that someone may be able to reduce your stress and talk you through the experience.”

“But the file will still run? I’ll still surge and reboot?”

“The file will still run. I can’t stop that. What I’m hoping, is that in reducing your stress levels during the experience, we’ll be able to get you to manually throttle the processing power given to the file and then exit the file without triggering a sudden surge of process and biocomponent activations. Without that surge, you shouldn’t have to reboot. The constantly active biocomponents will use additional power, so you may find that you feel run-down a lot easier, you may need to spend more time in stasis than usual. If you do still experience a surge, you may need to go into stasis very soon after, especially if your reserves are low to start.” George huffed lightly, “Like I say, it’s a theory. I don’t really know what else to suggest.”

“Change the permissions.” Connor said flatly. “It’s the best idea we have. Worst case scenario, nothing has changed. I’d rather risk replacing some parts in the process of finding a solution than…” he stuttered, not wanting think of his current inevitable demise. “Than the alternative.”

Hank sat beside him on the bench and wrapped a supportive arm across Connor’s shoulders.

“We’re going to fix this. I promise.” Hank said, partly to reassure Connor, but also in part to reassure himself.

“I’m really tired, Lieutenant.”

“If you’re comfortable with me to continue, you can go into stasis while I work on these permissions. Your power is low. I wouldn’t want your friend here to have to carry you home.” George said, already back to tapping on the screens upon screens of Connor’s data.

Connor tilted his head onto Hank’s shoulder and closed his eyes. It took a couple of seconds for Hank to register that Connor had actually gone into stasis on him.

“Oh, no, no, _no,_ don’t fall asleep on me, you awkward prick!”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the kudos, comments, and bookmarks! I have no idea what to say to you all except that you have made me very very happy and you're all beautiful people with some wonderful writing of your own too!

The drive home was uneventful. Hank sat in an awkward silence, looking to his partner occasionally, who had exited stasis only to walk back to the car, unlike his usual peaceful face in stasis, he appeared to remain troubled.

Connor’s permissions had been successfully changed. They had no idea of the likelihood of success yet.

Hank pulled the car into the drive and unbuckled his seatbelt, then leaned over and ruffled Connor’s hair softly.

“Wake up, sleepyhead, we’re home.”

Connor opened his eyes. His power reserves having raised a measly 3%. He yawned and blinked a couple of times before turning to his partner.

“I can still hear everything when I’m in stasis. I don’t know why I didn’t expect that.” Connor said, placing a hand on his seat buckle and releasing it slowly. “The additional power usage means my power is replenishing as a much slower rate than usual.” He let out a long breath. “I really need to get inside, enter stasis, and stay there as long as possible.”

Hank smiled. “I’ll put the television on, then. We’ll find something that bores you, and you’ll be asleep in no time!”

“That isn’t how stasis works, Hank. I choose to enter stasis; it doesn’t work the same as falling asleep.”

“Oh, so you deliberately fall asleep in the middle of movie night?” Hank teased.

“No!” Connor paused. “OK, yes.”

“I knew it!”

“I’m sorry!” Connor defended. “But it’s only because you watched that movie three different times! The first time, you fell asleep at the end, then the second time you fell asleep at the beginning! Then you decided to watch it all one more time!”

Hank laughed, “For fucks sake, Connor, have you still not figured out when I’m pulling your leg?”

“You’re not pulling my leg; your hands are on your lap.” Connor looked confused.

Hank groaned. “Did Cyberlife not give you any information about idioms?”

“Idioms? Oh!” Connor’s eye’s widened as the penny dropped. “You mean you’re joking with me.”

“Get out of the fucking car, boy Genius!” Hank laughed.

 

Connor made a beeline for the sofa as they stepped into the house. He kicked his shoes off under the table, curled his legs up beside him, leaned against the cushions and immediately dropped into stasis. Sumo jumped onto the sofa and spread himself across Connor’s lap and legs, resting his chin on the arm of the sofa. He looked up at Hank and whined.

“It’s alright, Sumo” Hank mumbled, trying to keep his voice low, hoping it would disturb Connor less if he was quiet. “Connor is just a little under the weather. I’m sure he’ll pet you when he wakes up.”

Sumo huffed and closed his eyes, seemingly slipping into his own slumber on the android’s lap.

 

Hank read a book that evening, for the first time in what he realised was quite a long time. He slouched into the chair, occasionally peering over the top of his book to the android, who remained unmoving on the couch, with an equally unmoving Sumo as a blanket over his knees.

Hank was hungry, he looked towards the kitchen, and then back to the android, and decided against making any noise looking for pots and pans. He thought of going out for a bite to eat but realised he couldn’t bring himself to leave Connor alone right now. He decided on quietly ordering a takeout.

 

Forty-five minutes later his food arrived. The doorbell chimed loudly. Hank jumped up and cursed and Connor stirred.

“How long have I been out?” Connor said with a startle.

Hank ran to the door and returned with his food.

“Why are you asking me? You know that shit to the second.” Hank said, shuffling to the kitchen and grabbing some cutlery before opening the steaming box of noodles and stuffing a mouthful in his face. “Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you so I ordered food, and I forgot they would have to ring the doorbell.”

Sumo licked Connor’s hand. He looked down to the dog and smiled, scratching behind the dogs ear gently. “I don’t know why I asked. It felt like a normal thing to say… I’ve been out for just under 3 hours.”

“Yeah, it’s late.” Hank said gruffly. “I’m going to eat this and then go to bed.”

“You shouldn’t do that, Lieutenant. It’s not good for your digestive system.”

Hank rolled his eyes. “Shut up. Also stop calling me Lieutenant when we’re in the fucking house.” He said with a mouthful of chow mein. “If this… This flashback thing happens in the night…” Hank spoke between mouthfuls of food. “Then come and wake me.”

“That won’t be necessary. You need to sleep.”

“The hell it won’t! I’m not asking you, Connor, I’m telling you. The specialist said talking you through it might reduce your stress levels, and…” Hank hesitated “Well, I didn’t really understand the rest, but I’m fairly certain I heard the words ‘buy you some time’ in there. So, if it starts again, you’re going to wake me.”

Connor gently let go of Sumo’s fur and folded his arms across his chest, before nodding. “Thank you, Hank.”

 

Connor had drifted back into stasis before Hank even finished his meal. Hank took the carton over to the bin and disposed of it.

He pulled a tin of dogfood out of the cupboard and knelt beside Sumo’s bowl from the floor, scooping the chunks of meat out into the bowl with a fork and breaking it up a bit so Sumo didn’t make so much noise pulling the chunks apart when he ate. He tapped the fork on the side of the bowl as softly as he could, and Sumo slowly and heavily got down off of Connor’s lap and made his way over to his bowl. Hank scratched the top of the St. Bernard’s head lovingly before standing back up and discarding the tin.

 

It wasn’t really as late as Hank would normally go to bed. Usually he’d watch TV until he fell asleep in the chair. Connor would normally wake him sometime between midnight and 1am and talk endless statistics about the benefits of lying down, and proper sleep, and good “sleep hygiene” (whatever that was) and shaming him into brushing his teeth before bed.

 

The book he had been reading was where he’d left it. Open, face down to hold his page, on the arm of the chair. It was an old book, the paperback cover thick with ridges and curled up dog-eared corners, the spine peeling away and curling up on itself at the bottom. Hank realised he rarely even saw a book anymore but decided not to ponder it too deeply. He paused at the sofa, watching Connor’s soft breathing. He placed a hand on top of the androids head and stroked his hair momentarily.

“Goodnight, Connor.” He said quietly.

“Mmm.”

“Huh?” Hank looked confused. “You say something?”

“Night, Lieutenant.” Connor mumbled. Hank was unsure if he imagined him sounding so sleepy.

 

He stepped into his room and laid on top of the bedsheets with his book. His mind was still as much on his partner as it was on the story before him, though before long his arms started slowly dropping, and he drifted off with the book slowly rising and falling with his soft snores.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me at 8pm: I'm going to stop writing and spend time with friends because I've been focusing on this a little obsessively, then I'm going to come home and go to bed and work on this tomorrow.  
> Insomnia: KNOCK KNOCK MOTHERFUCKER! I WON'T LET YOU REST UNTIL YOU FINISH THAT CHAPTER.

 

Connor opened his eyes to the brightness of the sun on his face through a crack in the blinds. He’d been disturbed by the sound of a frying pan falling on the floor and Hank’s swearing, then groaning as he stretched down to pick it up.  It was unusual to Connor, as he was usually out of stasis long before the Lieutenant had managed to rise from his cocoon of comfort in the bedroom. In fact, sometimes the only thing that could get Hank to get up and ready for work on time was for Connor to slip some bacon into a hot pan, some coffee into the coffeemaker, and open Hank’s door a crack so that the delicious aroma might motivate him into action.

 

It was just after 8am, and he’d managed to get through an entire 10 hours of uninterrupted stasis without any errors. He allowed himself a moment to feel relieved before alerting his partner of his current state of consciousness.

“Good morning, Hank.” Connor said, making a point of sounding enthusiastic, and positive.

“Mornin’, Connor.” Hank leaned his bottom against the kitchen worksurface and biting into the bacon sandwich he’d finished making for himself. He chewed slowly, savouring the deliciousness of the crunchy edges of the bacon, contrasting against the chewier middle of the bacon, and the softness of the bread, before swallowing. “Did you sleep well?”

 

Connor had long-ago noticed that Hank referred to his stasis as sleeping. Originally, he hadn’t quite been sure how to approach the subject, as he couldn’t tell if Hank was forgetting that he didn’t sleep like humans, or if the idea of stasis as opposed to sleep make the man uncomfortable in some way. Eventually, he had decided to let the man carry on calling it sleep. He didn’t feel comfortable changing his vocabulary to refer to himself as sleeping, but he had to admit that there was something pleasing about his friend using such human words to describe his necessary functions.

 

“I did.” He eventually managed. “I’ve only gotten up to 87% power, but I’m sure I could catch up on the rest tonight.” He turned himself on the couch until he was facing backwards. His knees on the cushion, leaning on the back on the couch, and looking at Hank.

Hank shook his head whilst devouring a large portion of the sandwich in one bite. “Nah, I want you to get back to 100%, if these uh… Flashbacks are taking up so much power, I don’t want to end up having to carry you home… You’re too fucking heavy for that shit.”

“I’m not _that_ heavy” Connor protested. “Though I do see your point. I will contact Captain Fowler and let him know that I will be late in- “

“You just get your backside back to sleep. I’ll phone Fowler, the bastard’s still guilty about being on the wrong side of the revolution, and every time he talks to you, I think he might have an aneurysm from trying so hard.”

“Trying so hard to do what?”

“I don’t fucking know! Trying not to apologise for everything, trying to keep the past in the past, trying not to slip up and say “it” instead of “he”, trying not to do that _thing_ people do, where they want you to know that they accept you, and somehow they become obnoxiously _too fucking nice._ ” Hank filled his mouth with coffee.

“I don’t think Captain Fowler is ‘too fucking nice’.” Connor said, thoughtfully. “In fact, I find Captain Fowler to be quite emotionally muted, most of the time.”  
Hank snorted. “Well, good. That’s how he _should_ come across.”

Connor tilted his head to one side, his LED spinning yellow. “Hank? Are people _too_ nice to me?”

“Connor, you deserve all the fucking niceness in the world.” Hank raised his hands into an exaggerated shrug. “Just, sometimes people are doing it more for themselves, and to pat their own fucking backs, than they are doing it to make your experience more pleasant. It looks like pleasantness times ten, and it stinks of self-serving ‘look at me, look at how accepting I am of you’, because a month ago, you weren’t even a person to them, and to some of them, you’re still not. Not everyone was happy with androids becoming equal.” Hank rolled his shoulders and tightened his hands into fists momentarily, before relaxing them again. “Not that I’m saying Fowler doesn’t accept you, just that it’s an adjustment for him.”

Connor rotated back to a normal sitting position on the sofa. His LED continuing to cycle on yellow for some time before he replied. “I _think_ I understand, but how do you know all this?”

“Go back to sleep, Connor.” Hank said with a warning tone, sipping his coffee and returning to his bedroom, clicking the door shut behind him.

 

“A malfunction? What _sort_ of malfunction?” Captain Fowler asked, suspiciously.

Hank had called in; he’d tried to pass him and Connor’s absence off as a simple malfunction. Captain Fowler didn’t seem to be buying it. Hank paced his bedroom whilst he talked.

“Ahh, it’s nothing serious, really- “  
“Well then there’s no need for _you_ to be late. I don’t want you getting back into old habits, Lieutenant.”  
“I c-… I _can’t_ come in, Jeffery.” Hank grumbled. “Why are you busting my ass about this?”  
“Well, if you can’t come in, then it must be serious.” Captain Fowler was blunt, knowing getting a simple and truthful story out of Hank was like pulling teeth.

Hank paused and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Connor’s… Connor’s ill.” Hank lowered his voice and leaned into his phone, trying to make sure Connor wouldn’t hear him talking.

“Androids can’t _get_ ill, Lieutenant- “  
“Yeah, well, apparently they can!” Hank murmured harshly, trying to get his seriousness across without raising his voice. Captain Fowler stayed quiet, waiting patiently for an explanation, and Hank pinched his eyebrows together between his fingers and sighed. “We… Connor was having some issues… I don’t even know if he’d want me to tell you this… Shit.”  
“Hank, if it’s going to affect his work, I need to know.” Jeffery tried to sound a bit more sympathetic than he had been, realising that Hank _was_ now trying to be honest with him.

“We took him to a specialist, and, and, uh, fuck, this is going to sound ridiculous, but you weren’t there, I swear it’s true, it _does_ make sense, but I don’t think you’re going to believe me.”

“Out with it, Lieutenant.” Fowler was gentle, but firm, he didn’t want to waste time on Hank stalling.

“They think it’s PTSD.” He finally said. He heard silence at first, followed by a long exhale from Captain Fowler.

“Jesus… I didn’t think that was possible. I mean, I guess it isn’t _completely_ inconceivable, given what little we even understand about deviancy.” Fowler focussed on the man on the telephone. “Hank, I know you want to be there for him. I commend that, I really do, but you can’t be there with him 24/7 for the rest of his life.”

“I’m not asking to be there with him 24/7 for the rest of his life, just until…” Hank trailed off. He hadn’t thought how long he would even need to do this; he just knew that his friend was sick, and needed him, and the risks involved if someone wasn’t there for him right now. How could he put a deadline on that? “I just want to stay with him until we come into work, and hopefully until he finds a therapist. That’s all.”

Fowler gave it some thought before responding. “Fine. Come in when you can, but it… _he_ is going for a psych eval as _soon_ as an appointment is available, _and_ he’s on desk duty until we’re satisfied that he’s stable.”

Hank sounded mildly relieved. “Thank you, that really helps.”

“Not so fast, Lieutenant.” Fowler continued. “If you need to be by his side until he’s in therapy. That means _you’re_ also on desk duty.”  
Hank slouched a little more, “Of course, I understand.”  
“Really?! You _hate_ driving the desk! I _never, ever_ thought I’d see the day when you resumed giving a shit, Hank.” Jeffery teased. “I _definitely_ didn’t think that shit would be given over an android! Are you going soft on us?”  
“Fuck off, Jeffery.” Hank barked, immediately hanging up.

 

Hank spent the next couple of hours going through lists of therapists, focussing on those who specifically covered PTSD, emailing them all, and slowly getting frustrated at the responses of the one’s who even bothered to reply.

_“… We’re sorry, none of our therapists are accepting android clients, as mental health is an exclusively human condition...”_

_“… Regrettably our psychiatrists are currently unable to take on androids...”  
“… PTSD only occurs in humans…”_

_“… Cannot see androids…”_

_“… Unable to accept android patients…”_

_“… Exclusively human condition…”_  
“… With great regret…”  
“… Apologies…”

Hank finished reading one particularly long and condescending message from another therapist’s office that ended _“For more advice in finding the right treatment for your android, refer to the following link”_ and, in spite of the fact that the phrasing felt _off_ , desperate for any information that would help, he clicked the link, only to find that it led to a site about human supremacy, and advocated in great length for “the death of all androids by any means necessary”, and followed it up with endless embedded videos and animated images of androids that had died in violent and grotesque ways.

“For _fuck’s sake_!” He shouted, tossing his phone angrily onto the other side of the bed and rubbing his eyes as though trying to erase what he’d just seen. “I should have known as soon as it said, ‘your android’, I’m so fucking stupid!” He made a mental note to look into the owner of that email, and the owner of the website, when he got into work, and make damned sure they got a visit from the angriest armed bastard he could find on the force.

 

Hank wasn’t sure if only a couple of minutes had past, as he laid there with his eyes shut, trying to calm down, or if he’d fallen asleep again, but he was disturbed by a tapping on his bedroom door.

“Is that you, Connor?” Hank sat back upright and stretched. “You can open the door, I’m not naked or anything.”

Connor opened the door a fraction, and peered in.

“I’m at optimum power now. We should go in to work.”

“What time is it?” Hank asked, quietly hoping he’d fallen asleep and missed most of the day.

“It’s just coming up for noon.”

“Fuck it. Fine. Let me get washed and changed.” He yawned.

“Did you remember to speak to Captain Fowler?” Connor asked.  
“Yeah, sure, uh, he said it was fine, but we’re on desk duty until…” Hank swallowed nervously, unsure how the android would take the news. “Until you’ve been cleared by psych eval.”  
“Oh.” Connor sounded surprised, but not upset. “I guess that makes sense. It might also make it easier for a therapist, if I’ve already been evaluated.”  
“Well, good.” Hank huffed. “If I have to be chained to a desk too, I hope it’s at least worth it.”

 

 

Connor returned to the sofa and waited patiently. Hank seemed to be getting ready a little faster than most other mornings, but having been awake for a few hours already, he found that he didn’t ache so much as he usually did. Throwing on some clean clothes, he trotted through the living space to head to the bathroom.

“Hank?” Connor caught his attention quickly before he went into the bathroom. Hank paused with his hand on the bathroom door handle and turned.

“Just brushing my teeth and then we can go, Jesus, Connor…”  
“It’s not that.” Connor said, dismissing what he’d said. “I just… I wanted to say thank you, for taking care of me.”

Hank felt the blush rising in his face and ducked into the bathroom, leaving the door open so he could reply.

“Sure thing. I’m sure you’d do the same for me.” He said, as dispassionately as he could.

Hank smiled at himself in the mirror.


	5. Chapter 5

The bullpen seemed quiet when Hank and Connor stepped onto the floor. Connor slipped across the office and behind his desk efficiently, hoping that the few people who did seem to be present right now didn’t notice his tardiness. Hank shuffled into the breakroom, mumbling something about coffee.

Connor connected to the computer and started opening the files he had been working on when he had had to step away the day before, trying to ignore the fact that he was feeling like he’d failed somehow, by being so far behind in his work.

A finger trailed across his desk, and the owner lifted it and inspected it, as though searching for dust.   
“An android that can’t get to work on time. Who would have thought?” Gavin drawled. “You see, we give you rights, but you just want to keep taking.”  
Connor didn’t look away from his screen but continued to monitor the man in his peripheral vision.  
“You know, Detective, if you spent as much time on your work, as you do on provoking others, you’d get a lot more done.” He said, continuing to focus on his work, trying not to react to the Detective, who had never quite been ready to accept the new equality between the two of them.  
“You’re slipping, prick. First, it’s a day late, then it’s a day off. Next thing we all know, we’re all- “  
“Don’t be so fucking ridiculous, Detective Reed!” Connor felt the words leave his mouth without even realising he was going to say them out loud, as he jumped forward from his seat and leaned onto the desk. A few people across the bullpen looked over and he noticed that he’d been quite loud. His LED cycled an angry red. He lowered his voice. “Leave me alone, Gavin.”  
Gavin smirked and leaned across the desk, stopping his head just beside Connor’s. Connor could feel the Detective’s breath on his ear as he whispered. “You’re up to something, and I will find out what it is.”  
“Gavin, stop flirting with the boy!”  
Connor gave a sigh of relief as Hank appeared with a fresh cup of coffee. Gavin stepped back and grinned.  
“I’m not flirting with it. You stupid old prick!” He growled.   
“Well then there’s no need to be so close.” Hank returned the growl, standing uncomfortably close to Gavin, staring him down. Gavin continued to glare at Connor, using two fingers to point to his own eyes, and then flicking his wrist to point to Connor.  
He turned on his heel with a final retort of “I’m watching you, plastic.” and returned to his desk.

Hank plonked his coffee cup onto his desk and settled into his seat. Connor returned to his seat, folded his arms on the desk and leaned his head into them. His LED now flicking between red and yellow.  
“Hey.” Hank shot a look at him. “Don’t let that asshole get to you like that.”  
Connor groaned, though his LED dropped the red in favour of a solid yellow. “I just... Thank you for standing up for me. I don’t know why I reacted. It’s like he can see my stress levels and knows exactly what to do to make them spike.” He turned his head to the side, looking at Hank. “I think I understand why humans crack under stress and behave so unpredictably. I had no idea that I was going to yell at him until I was already doing it.” He sat back upright, looking down at his hands. “I was the most unusual sensation. It almost felt like I wasn’t the one shouting. I wasn’t me.”  
“Well, you are you. He’s gone now. I wouldn’t worry on it too much, Con.”  
“It does worry me though. This… This whole thing that’s happening, with the tics, or the flashbacks or whatever, seems to happen more often if my stress levels are high.”  
Hank raised an eyebrow. “How high are we talking?”  
“Well, yesterday the tic started at 62%, I remember seeing 84% before I…” Connor trailed off, feeling his stress levels gently rise even trying to think about the situation. “Previously, the tic malfunction would start at somewhere between 57% and 64%, but if I took myself somewhere to recalibrate, the stress levels dropped during recalibration, and the malfunction stopped.”  
“Why didn’t you mention this before?”  
“I didn’t really want to think about it, so I didn’t. I convinced myself that it was just a bug of some kind. When the specialist suggested that it might be something less specific to androids, I started trying to cross-reference any of my running statistics with the timestamps in my error log. I realised high stress levels were present in all of the events, often with a sudden spike.”  
Hank looked confused, he was used to his friend throwing a lot of information at him at once, but it still always took time for him to think through what he had said, and whether or not it was understood.  
“So, these sudden spikes, does that mean something is causing you to suddenly get stressed?”  
“It’s likely.” Connor shrugged. “But I haven’t managed to pinpoint a specific cause for the stress.”  
Hank looked over his screen at the back of Gavin’s head. “And what level did that fucker get you to?”  
“56%.”  
“Fucking hell, Connor.”  
“It’s fine! I’m back down to 30% now, and it’s slowly dropping.” He gave a slight hint of a smile to Hank, and tapped his LED, which had returned to blue.  
“Well, let’s try to keep it that way.” Hank grumbled. “If less stress is less tics, then it’s more time bought.”

They both settled into their work and chatter became sparse. Various Officers pottered in and out of the space over the next few hours. The office seemed to be particularly quiet today, and even Gavin had left the office with a group of people and some fuss about a double homicide.

Connor had managed to keep his stress low, not through much effort, but desk duty seemed to consist of a lot of data entry and making sure the right files got to the right person. The biggest stressor was that it was mind-numbing work, which seemed to creep up on him gradually, but a quick break away from the computer to pick some handwritten paperwork up from forensics seemed to swiftly reduce that stress.

His computer pinged softly as an email came through from the Captain. He felt a great tension in his head as he considered leaving it a couple of minutes whilst he finished the paperwork he was currently working on, but he found himself unable to wait.  
“Ah. I have my psychological evaluation at 1800 hours, according to the Captain.” Connor mumbled, leaning towards Hank’s desk.  
Hank looked up at the clock. “That’s only an hour away! They’re never that fast!”  
“The email was a forward. It looks like the psych team sent it to him about 11:30.” Connor shrugged. “I can only assume that he’s only just seen it.”  
“Nah, he’s being a shit.” Hank said, gruffly. “He’s supposed to tell you about the appointment in person, and obviously he’s been trying to build up the courage to call you in, but he’s too fucking chickenshit.” Hank made sure to shout the ‘chickenshit’ towards Jeffery’s door, but if he was heard, then he was ignored, as there was no response. “Even so, a psych eval usually takes a few days, maybe a week to come through… Good luck, I guess.”  
“Thank you, Lieutenant…” Connor hesitated, and coughed. “Have you ever had a psych eval?”  
“Why the fuck would I tell you?” Hank said quickly, before closing his eyes and sighing. “Yeah, they said I should get regular therapy, but that I was stable. I ran with the ‘stable’ part, and never really took the time to look into the therapy part.”  
“I see… What should I expect?”  
“They ask a lot of questions. Just be honest. They’re a pain in the fuckin’ ass, but they’re trying to help.” Hank reassured.   
Connor gave a lopsided grin before returning his attention to his work, trying to ignore the knot of tension in his chest.


	6. Chapter 6

Connor took a seat in the psychology department, which was on the floor above his own. The room smelled like multi-surface cleaner, and the seats were black vacuum-moulded plastic with metal legs that had been screwed into the ground. There was a small reception desk that he had approached when he arrived and was given a smile and a clipboard by the young-looking android girl who was manning the desk.

 

He fidgeted in his seat. The clipboard held a sheet with some questions, but before he could even get to those, he’d been stopped by the ‘Surname’ field. He hovered the pen above the paper hesitantly, before eventually just putting ‘RK800’ in the box.

 

“ _Over the last 2 weeks, how long have you been bothered by the following:”_ the sheet read, followed by a small list.

“ _Felt nervous, anxious, or on edge.”_ Connor pondered briefly before circling “ _3\. Nearly every day.”_

 _“Not being able to control or stop worrying.”_ Was equally paused upon, before settling on “ _1\. Several days.”_ He had been able to get his stress and worry under control earlier that day, and most other days, but it was the previous day’s inability to get his stress down that really bothered him.

He continued to the end of the small section, and there was an area to tally the results. He wrote “12” in the total box.

 

The next section was a little bit longer, and he found the questions to be very targeted towards humans.

Like the previous section, it began: _“Over the last 2 weeks, how long have you been bothered by the following:”_

 _“Little interest or pleasure in doing things.”_ Connor circled the 0. He’d been greatly interested in a great many things recently, mostly things he previously hadn’t been able to appreciate. He’d particularly been enjoying listening to music. He’d found that his work was much more interesting when he could empathise with the people in the case. He enjoyed cooking, even if he _did_ have to rely on the reactions of others (mostly Hank) to be sure that it was good.

 _“Trouble getting to sleep, staying asleep or sleeping too much.”_ That question stalled him a little. He didn’t sleep. Even if he replaced the word ‘sleep’ with ‘stasis’ it wouldn’t necessarily mean what they intended it to mean. He had no issue getting into stasis because it was a simple process completely unlike sleep, he could choose when to exit or enter stasis at will, so he wouldn’t have an issue _“staying asleep”_ , and he would only _“sleep too much”_ if he chose to.

However, he _did_ have to stay in stasis a lot longer after the flashbacks, and it did seem likely that this was going to be a regular thing due to the nature of the excess power usage from the events, combined with his biocomponent adjustments.

He circled _“1. Several days”._ The next nearest option was “ _0\. Not at all”_ and he felt that to be too dismissive of the current situation.

After spending a good 2 minutes staring at _“Poor appetite or overeating”_ he decided to put a line through it and write ‘N/A’ at the end. He didn’t eat. It wasn’t the complex mental issue that they would assume it to be if he marked the sheet accordingly, it just wasn’t within his specs!

His final score in that section came to 11. He jotted it into the total box.

 

Some of the questions had been hard. Not necessarily difficult to answer like the one about eating, but rather that Connor struggled to be honest with himself that not all the emotional experiences he was having since becoming deviant (or even before that) were positive ones. He knew life wasn’t all sunshine, and he had expected there to be negative experiences, but the answers on the sheet told a tale that suggested perhaps he wasn’t necessarily coping well with these new-found emotions.

 

He passed the clipboard back to the receptionist and she smiled, placing it into a set of upright trays on the wall.

 

He sat back down and found the coin in his pocket, flipping it softly between thumb and forefinger without removing it from his pocket. He felt like he should be sat still, and yet suddenly he felt the overwhelming urge to be pacing the room, to leave, to go back to work, to go home and pet Sumo. Until 10 minutes ago he felt like this was a good appointment, and a necessary appointment. Yet sitting in the quiet waiting room, he felt like it was all too much, and he’d rather be anywhere other than there.

 

A woman with a kindly face stepped out from the door beside the desk, she had thin framed glasses, a dark shade of lipstick on her lips, and blonde hair that came straight down over her shoulders. She took the clipboard out of the tray.

“Connor, uh, RK… Oh! Yes! Connor!” She suddenly spoke enthusiastically. “Sorry! I’m Ruby, your psychiatrist today.”

Connor stood and smiled, following her to a separate room.

A table sat beside one wall covered in various leaflets. There was a small box with different plush animals beside it, and a bowl full of intricately patterned stones, some polished, some plain. A colourful windchime hung in front of the window, reflecting a rainbow pattern across the white walls. There were some abstract art pieces on the walls in dark frames. Two chairs, about 8 feet apart, faced one another in the centre of the room. He walked to the one that wasn’t surrounded by paperwork and took a seat.

 

“You’re our first android, Connor!” Ruby gushed. “I pushed you into an early slot with us because I was excited to try and get an understanding from you of how gaining emotional awareness must have felt, but also, because of that sudden onset of emotion, I was concerned that you may be quickly entering a crisis situation, and wanted to be able to see you before that had a chance to get a grip on you!”

 

Connor felt hot, like the room was ablaze, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his LED cycling a constant yellow. Ruby was obviously very intrigued by him, but he felt less like a person, and more like an exhibit to her right now. He wished Hank was there to ground him. He wanted to take off his jacket, but something stopped him. Something always stopped him. He was perfectly capable of removing it, and now that there was no real legal reason to display his android status, he could replace it with a plain jacket, but any hints Hank had made of clothes shopping had been procrastinated by Connor, until Hank just stopped bringing it up. Naturally, Ruby had noticed his discomfort.

“You can take your jacket off, if you’d like.” She spoke quite plainly.

Connor shook his head. “I’m fine.”

The jacket continued to surround him in suffocating heat.

His core temperature remained an average 37.5°C. Normal.

She wrote something down and perused the answers on the clipboard. Connor tried very hard not to fidget.

“Your questionnaire answers suggest that you have moderate anxiety, and even without answering the question about food, you’re still scoring moderately for depression, too.” Ruby said, her eyes scanning down the page. “You say you think you’d be better off dead or hurting yourself in some way every day. Can you elaborate on this for me? Have you ever deliberately hurt yourself?” she took her eyes off the questionnaire and looked sympathetically to Connor.

“That’s difficult to answer without some context. Originally, I was programmed to complete my mission by any means. As a result, I have deliberately hurt myself in order to complete my mission in the past. I’ve even killed myself to complete a mission.” Connor said, and, whilst an honest answer, he knew he was avoiding giving the answer that Ruby was actually looking for. “Hurting myself is a complicated situation. It wouldn’t necessarily have any effects if I were to damage myself in a superficial way, as I cannot feel pain. I would not feel any release, or endorphin rush from deliberate self-injury.” He stopped. He was avoiding the answer still. He tried again. “I replay situations in my head every day in which I feel like my past is irredeemable, and in order to avoid the risk of making those mistakes again, I feel like I should decommission myself and shut down. However, as is evident, I do have some selfish desire to continue living, otherwise I would not be here to discuss this with you.”

Finally, the truth. He’d never said it out loud. He’d never even suggested to anyone that he had any kind of thoughts like that before. He felt lighter somehow. He also felt awful, like he wanted to take the words out of the air and push them back inside himself.

 

“How does it feel to say that out loud?” Ruby asked.

“Fucking horrible.” Connor said.

“What I’m hearing, is that you have what is known as passive suicidal ideation, Connor. Do you know what that means?”

“I’ve heard it before. On a case. I think you’re saying that I think about suicide, but don’t have any intentions to act on those thoughts.” Connor placed his head into his hands.

“That’s basically it. However, it sounds like you’ve been known to act impulsively in the past. I did get a copy of your file, and I can see at least two occasions of death in the past few months. Can you understand why this would mean that you would be considered to be at a high-risk?” Ruby tried talk very gently.

“Yes. I understand that with the limited time-scale available, my past actions are still considered.” He paused. His stress was rising. Ruby was already making him feel doubtful that she was going to declare him stable in any way. “I can assure you that the circumstances of my deaths were not something that could be measured by human psychology.”

“That’s true, but we also don’t know much about android psychology yet. Such a thing only exists as a concept right now. I know it doesn’t seem fair, but I have a duty of care to you, that operates on existing guidelines- “

“Guidelines that were _not_ written with androids in mind!” Connor snapped. “Especially when you’re considering events that were pre-deviancy! I died because I was carrying out orders!” Ruby looked shocked at the outburst, but she remained silent.

Connor stood up abruptly and paced back and forth. He wanted to run out of the room. He felt like an overinflated tyre, ready to explode. He needed to displace the stress that was building up. His LED circled, red and furious against his skin.

“I just came down here because it was required to do my job properly. I’m planning on looking for a therapist to help with the tics and flashbacks that I’ve been getting! I don’t _want_ to die. The reason I’m looking for a therapist is because these flashbacks take such a toll on my biocomponents that if I don’t get them under control, I _will_ shut down.” The stress grew. The pacing continued. “I probably only have a few weeks to fix this! I don’t have _time_ to waste on fixing the suicidal ideation until I’ve fixed the flashbacks!”

Connor’s tic began, visibly and forcefully.

“Shit! Not now, not now!” He sat down on the carpet in front of his seat. Rocking back and forth to continue the sensation of displacing energy. The tic repeated.

“What’s happening, Connor?” Ruby asked calmly.

“I need Lieutenant Hank Anderson, now!” Connor demanded. “If this escalates into a flashback, he’s the only one who knows what to do right now.”

 

Ruby stepped into the corridor and spoke to the receptionist. She stepped back into the room, leaving the door ajar.

“Hannah is going to call Lieutenant Anderson and send him straight in when he gets here.” She assured Connor.

Connor nodded before putting his head down between his crossed knees and his hands behind his head. He looked like he’d folded himself down as small as he could.

“What’s happening for you right now, Connor?”

“I’m overly stressed. I’m scared of the impending flashback. I’m angry because you refuse to accept that I’m not the same Connor who jumped off a roof anymore. I’m sad because I just want to go back to work and not have this problem. I’m overwhelmed because everything _feels_ right now.” He blurted out, letting his mouth run with little to no delay to actually process the thoughts he was having.

Ruby sat down on the floor in front of Connor. “Can you try and focus on something for me? Can you look around the room and try and find something red?”

Connor screwed his eyes shut. “The header on the second leaflet from the left on the table, the reflections on the wall from the windchime in the window, the windchime itself has some red, so does the picture on the wall furthest from the door, and the felt pads in the underside of the legs of the chair.” He listed off.

Ruby glanced curiously at the legs of the chair behind Connor, and sure enough, a thin felt pad existed at each foot of the chair, assumedly to stop scuffing on wood floors.

“You’re very observant, Connor.” She began, “But I wonder if perhaps you can look around the room and choose one of those items to look at.”

Connor shook his head between tics. “I can’t!” He shuddered. “If I have a flashback I fall. If I sit like this, it’s unlikely that I will fall. I don’t want to move and end up hurting you by accidentally collapsing onto you.”

“Fucking hell, Connor, what did they say to you?!” Hank’s voice came through the door way. He knelt down on the floor beside Connor and put a hand on his shoulder. “Can you sit up?”

“No, I don’t want to fall and hurt someone!”

“Then sit up and lean on me. You had no fucking problem with falling asleep on me yesterday! We can’t hear what you’re saying when you talk into your lap.”

Connor reluctantly sat up and leaned to one side against the Lieutenant. His breathing was sharp and panicked.

“Can we try and slow your breathing, Connor?” Ruby said. Connor nodded, and tried to focus. It made no sense to him. His breathing previously had always been for human benefit – to seem more human. There were uses in his system for oxygen and cool air, but nothing that would suffer without it, mostly the air was used as a mild coolant, to mean that his internal temperature didn’t need as much fan usage, which, as had been the case previously, could be loud and unsettling. Yet somehow, he felt like he was desperate for air, and no number of breaths were enough. Again, he felt like he was burning up, but his internal core temperature unwavering from normal.

“Take in a deep breath and count to 5, then try and breath out and count to 7.” Ruby instructed.

It took several attempts. The first few, Connor was desperate to breathe in too fast, then couldn’t breathe out for a count of 7 without breathing back in again. Gradually his breathing slowed. His stress reducing in small amounts.

 

The tic began to ease. Connor sat back upright and looked carefully around the room. Looking behind him, he focused on the red specks on the windchime.

“I looked at the windchime. It definitely has red on it.” He said, looking back to Ruby. She smiled.

“That’s great, Connor. Now can you tell me how the texture of something feels on your skin. Maybe feel the carpet?” She suggested.

“It’s coarse and thick.” Connor ran his hands through the pile of the carpet in front of him. His stress lowered further. His tic had stopped completely. His stress was down to 30%. His LED was blue. He gave a crooked smile. “Thank you.”

“What is going through your mind right now?” Ruby asked carefully.

“Relief. I don’t think I’m going to have a flashback right now anymore.” He turned to look at Hank. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I think I may have called you down here unnecessarily.”

Hank smiled slightly and butted shoulders with his friend.

 

A few moments of silence passed before Ruby spoke again.

“Connor, you said you were scared of the flashbacks. Can you describe to me what happens?” She pressed gently.

Connor looked worried. He felt his stress spike again and closed his eyes to focus on his breath. He shook his head.

Hank put an arm across Connor’s shoulders. “You can do it buddy, I’ve got you.”

Hank felt Connor’s posture loosen beneath his arm and he exhaled slowly. Hank retracted his arm to give the android some space.

“I’m in the Zen Garden.” Connor said calmly.

Ruby looked curious. “The Zen Garden?”

Connor opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He hesitated before finally asking Hank if he could explain it to Ruby for him.

Hank obliged, already familiar with Connor’s old method of reporting back to Cyberlife, and how it presented itself to Connor. Ruby listened intently.

 

“Are you able to tell us what happens in the Zen Garden during these flashbacks?” Ruby asked. “It’s OK if you can’t, I just want a better understanding of what is happening for you.”

“I can see myself, being loyal to Amanda – my handler. Taking instructions that I cannot hear. I know however that they would be something to do with stopping deviants, stopping the revolution, and maintaining the status of androids as simple machines.” Connor stared at the carpet just in front of him. “At the time, I still behaved as a machine. I aided people in keeping it that way. I feel a lot of guilt. If I’d done something different far sooner- “

“You’d have been decommissioned, and the revolution would have failed.” Hank interrupted.

 

Connor slouched down and shaded his face from view with curved hands. He shuddered and sniffed.

“Are you... Are you crying, Connor?!” Hank was taken aback.

Ruby brandished a box of tissues that had been sat beside her seat. Connor took them and wiped his face.

“I’m sorry. This has never happened before.” He said.

“It sounds like these flashbacks contain some very painful memories for you, Connor, and it’s completely understandable that you are getting so distressed about having these thoughts.” Ruby said soothingly. She turned to Hank. “Thank you very much for coming when we called for you, Lieutenant Anderson, and for the support you’ve provided. However, I need to discuss with Connor how I think we need to move forward.”

Hank groaned as he shifted to get up from the floor but was stopped when Connor grabbed his wrist.

“I want him to stay.” Connor rushed. “Please?”

Hank settled back on the floor. Ruby nodded.

“That’s OK, but if he stays, I need to say things related to what we discussed before he came into the room. Is that alright, or would you rather he was allowed to leave?”

“It’s OK. I want him to know.” Connor said. Ruby turned to face Hank.

“Connor has been experiencing moderate symptoms for both anxiety, and depression. Most concerning is that he has daily suicidal ideation.” She said, trying to be as direct as possible.

“For fuck’s sake, Connor, why don’t you talk to me about this?!”

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant.” Connor mumbled.

“Connor claims that there is no intent. I do not believe him to be lying, however, he has a history of impulsive behaviour, that has resulted in suicide in the past. This places him in the high-risk category.” Ruby sighed nervously, anticipating that Connor would argue again, but he remained quiet. She returned her gaze to him, as he continued to look down at the carpet. “Considering the level of risk, combined with your flashbacks, your current instability and panic preceding, and the urgency of your physical situation regarding these flashbacks, it is currently my opinion that you should receive a short period of inpatient care.”

“What?!” Connor looked up; eyes wide. “No! I thought you were just going to say I should remain on desk duty! You said you didn’t believe that I had intent!”

Ruby looked sympathetic. “I understand that this isn’t what you wanted. I believe it has the highest chance of helping you.”

“Hank! This can’t be happening! I can’t go to a hospital! No one would take on an android! I’ll lose my job! I- “

Hank cut Connor off.

“You’re not going to lose your job, Connor! You’re allowed to have sick leave just like the rest of us. Besides, Fowler is desperate not to fuck up this adjustment to android equality, there is no way in hell he would fire the first android in the department to get sick. It’d be the end of his career!” Hank tried to reassure him. “If the psychiatrist thinks your best chance at success is in hospital, I think you need to take that advice.”

“I’m scared, Hank.” Connor’s eyes refilled with tears.

Hank put his arm back over Connor’s shoulders and pulled him in for a hug.

“He’s right though, how are you going to find somewhere that will take an android?” Hank asked. “I was emailing therapists all morning, didn’t get a single successful reply.”

“You were?” Connor sounded surprised.

“I want you to get better, Connor.”

“I have a friend who is a consultant at Stonecrest. I think if I explain it to them, they will agree to take Connor as an inpatient. It’s only 15 minutes drive from here. Will you stay here while I call them, Connor?”

Connor nodded slowly, and Ruby left the room to make the call. He remained under the arm of Hank.

“You’ll visit me, won’t you?” He asked of Hank.

“Every day if I have to.”

“And you won’t treat me any different?”

“How do you mean? Be nicer because you’re ill? Nah, you’re still a fucking asshole, ain’t no therapy in the world to fix that.” Hank chuckled. He didn’t feel like chuckling but did it for Connor’s benefit. It wouldn’t do for him to let Connor know he was worried sick.

 

A few minutes passed before Ruby returned.

“They are happy and willing to see you, Connor. Do you know how you’re going to get there?”

“I’m going to drive him up there.” Hank said. Connor nodded in agreement.

“Thank you, Ruby.” Connor said, his voice barely above a whisper. She smiled.

“I will need to see you again before you return to work in the future. I look forward to seeing you again.”

Connor stood up and then held a hand out to Hank, offering to help him up from the floor. Hank pushed his hand away and clambered back onto his feet, groaning and stretching his legs as he stood.

 

They made their way out the door, heading to the car via Hank’s desk, where he had left his keys. Connor stayed out of the office. He was still bleary-eyed and didn’t want his colleagues to see him like this, especially not Detective Reed.

 

They got to the car and Connor got in and leaned his head against the window. Hank didn’t say anything, and he was thankful for that. It’d been an intensive appointment with Ruby. He didn’t even want to think right now.


	7. Chapter 7

Connor focused on the coolness of the glass window against his scalp, and the slight vibration as Hank turned the ignition and the car began to purr and they moved off. The streets were heavy with snow, houses and shops had started to put up Christmas decorations in the last couple of days, and the rows of buildings were now awash with beautiful colours and lights, and it occurred to Connor that he never asked how short his stay was going to be, and he wondered if he was going to spend Christmas in hospital. He shuddered.

 

Hank pulled the car into their own street. His house rather dim now that the other houses had commenced glowing with festivity.

 

Hank stepped out of the car. Connor remained in his position against the window. If he went inside the house now, he knew he wouldn’t want to leave. He feared that he’d put up a fight. Everything inside him was screaming against him going, and he knew that if he gave in to that, then he was giving up his best chance of survival.

 

Hank returned with a holdall bag a few moments later and opened the door, throwing it across the car and only Connor’s lap. He sat upright, startled by the sudden weight dropping onto his legs. Hank pulled a lever on his seat and the seat tipped forward. A great weight jumped onto the backseat.

“Sumo!” Connor smiled. “Hello, boy!”

“You didn’t think he’d let you go without saying goodbye?” Hank said.

Connor welled up with tears again as the St. Bernard leaned over and put his head on the android’s shoulder, licking his face. He put the holdall onto the floor in the footwell, turned in his seat and wrapped his arms around the giant pooch, pushing his face into Sumo’s fluffy fur.

 

He eventually turned back in his seat and lifted the holdall again. He opened the zip a little and peeked inside. His other shirts and Trousers were folded loosely and sitting in there, along with some old joggers and a black t-shirt.

“Oh.” He hadn’t even thought of the fact he would need a change of clothes. “Thank you, Hank. I- “

“Don’t worry, Connor, I’ve got your back.” Hank kept his eyes on the road.

“Will you… Will you please visit me? I don’t want to be alone.”

“I already told you, if I have to come up every fucking day, I will.” Hank replied quickly.

“You don’t have to come up every day.” Connor said, embarrassed that he might be coming across so needy. “But… Thank you.”

“I think you should call Markus tonight.” Hank suggested. “I know it’s not easy to talk, but I think he’d want to know. Besides, if there are any other androids going through what you’re going through right now, Markus is probably going to be the one to know about it.”

“I…” Connor fretted, looking down at his hands. “I don’t deserve to talk to Markus. He lost so many people at my hands that day at Jericho.”

“He fucking forgave you for Christ’s sake, Con!” Hank snapped slightly. “The guy is always calling on you to see if you’ll visit him. He thinks the sun shines out of your ass! No one blames you for Jericho. No one has _ever_ blamed you for that, except you.”

“He thinks the sun shines out of my w- “

“Idioms, Connor.” Hank interrupted before he could ask.

“Oh…” Connor paused. “I suppose I can contact him, though I don’t know what I’d say.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’ll find the words. Just call him.”

“OK, I will, later.”

“And call me! Anytime you need to.” Hank added, hopeful that Connor would contact him. He’d gotten used to the android’s fairly constant presence, both at work and at home. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with all the time alone. He didn’t want to think about the dark places he could end up if he was alone again.

Connor’s LED circled yellow, and Hank’s phone rang. He didn’t even fetch the device from his pocket.

“Damnit, Connor. I didn’t mean _now._ I’m right fucking here!”

Connor’s lip twitched a small smile. “I was just making sure.”

“I still say that’s creepy, anyway. You just sit there silently while your LED goes nuts. Can’t you buy a phone or something? It’d be more obvious what you were doing.” Hank moaned. He knew Connor wouldn’t get a phone. He’d had this conversation with him several times. Of all the strange differences between him and Connor, this was probably the one that bothered him with the biggest lack of reason. It just _looked_ wrong.

“I have no need for a cell phone. Besides, it might look weird to you, but how weird is it going to look to everyone else if an android was using a cell phone?”

“ _Fine._ Fine. Do whatever you want.”

 

The great brick building intimidated Connor as they pulled into the carpark. He adjusted his tie nervously and gripped the bag.

“I can’t go in there.” Connor almost whimpered.

“Sure, you can! Hank ruffled Connor’s hair with one hand. “You’ve got this!”

“What if I just go home and find a therapist tomorrow, and stay home until I’m better? I don’t _need_ to stay in there, do I?”

“Stop trying to bargain, Connor.” Hank slouched on the steering wheel and sighed. “Truth be told, if you go in now, while they’re expecting you, you’ll be in as a voluntary patient. You might be allowed out of the place for walks, or to see anyone if they visit outside of visiting hours, or…” Hank turned to see Connor, who continued to stare forward with a worried expression. “Or even let you home for a few days over Christmas, if you’re still here.”

“I don’t want to be here for Christmas! It’s my first one!” Connor rushed, his eyes wide, spinning to look at Hank. His LED flickering yellow/red.

“Then you need to go in now, because if you don’t, they’ll contact that psychiatrist for your address, and they’ll come and collect you, and if you’re smart you won’t make a scene, but you’ll then be considered an involuntary patient. That means no walks, no visitors outside of whatever hours this place sets- “  
  
“And no Christmas at home.” Connor finished.

Sumo shuffled about on the backseat and whined, stretching out and putting his head back onto Connor’s shoulder. Connor ran his hand’s through the dog’s fur.

“I’m going to miss you, boy!” he said, wiping his eyes on his sleeves between strokes of Sumo’s fluff. “I’ll be home as soon as I can be, I promise!”

“He’ll miss you too.” Hank smiled. “He sleeps on you more than he sleeps in his bed!”

Hank and Connor stepped out of the car and Sumo flopped himself lazily back onto the back seat.

 

The inside of the hospital greeted them with a wave of warmth at the door. The receptionist gave a warm hello as they stepped in. Hank walked up to the counter, but Connor suddenly felt like he was glued to his spot on the floor.

“Hi. Uh, a psychiatrist phoned a consultant here, they’re expecting us, under the name Connor.” Hank mumbled to the receptionist.

The receptionist smiled and looked at a screen in front of him. “Certainly sir. Take a seat, Doctor Khatri will see you shortly.”

Hank nodded to Connor and walked over to the chairs and sat down. Connor rediscovered the ability to move and sat beside Hank.

“They said you’ll be seen in a moment, by a Doctor Khatri.” Hank whispered; Connor nodded.

Connor looked down at the bag he’d placed on the floor by his feet. There were tufts of Sumo’s fur stuck to some Velcro on a side flap. He wondered if it still smelled like him. He wondered if the back smelled like home. The warmth in the waiting room made him feel uncomfortable, though it felt different to the hotness he was feeling in the psych eval, this time his internal temperature was up half a degree, so he knew he was genuinely warm this time. He shifted a little in his seat, starting to feel that need to fidget that kept creeping up on him. He took the coin out of his pockets and folded it between each of his fingers.

“Really? Now?” Hank said, suggesting that it was probably not the time to be calibrating anything. Connor pushed his hand back into his pocket, gently stroking the coin between thumb and forefinger.

 

“Connor? I’m sorry, no one wrote a surname on this referral.” A voice came from a doorway behind him. Hank and Connor both stood at the same time. The gentleman who spoke looked at them both. Connor raised his hand.

“I’m Connor.”

“Ah! I remember now!” The gentleman’s eyes lit up. “I did this referral! I wasn’t given a surname for you. I’m Doctor Khatri, I’m a consultant and psychiatrist here.” He held out a hand to shake Connor’s, Connor obliged.

“Well, I don’t have a surname. I did put RK800 on the form I gave to Ruby.” Connor felt a little embarrassed that this was becoming such an issue.

“A lot of computers won’t take numbers in a name field, I’m afraid. Do you have any ideas what you’d like to be called?” The doctor asked cheerfully.

“I’ve never really thought about it.” Connor responded, clearly flustered. “I really don’t know where to start, I- “

“Just use Anderson.” Hank jumped in, seeing Connor’s distressed look as he tried to come up with a name.

“But that’s _your_ name.” Connor looked confused.

“Well you use my sofa, my living room, my house, the desk next to mine at work, and you’re rarely out of my sight! You might as well use that until you think of one of your own!” Hank said, shrugging. “You got a problem with my surname?”

“No, I… Thank you, Hank.” Connor smiled.

“I’m ready to take you on through, Connor. But your friend can’t follow you through here, we’re going to do observations and then get you settled in for tonight.” The doctor said, gesturing to the open door.

Connor stalled again; his legs feeling like they had been trapped in concrete beneath him. He lifted one foot to move but stumbled backwards. Hank caught him and steadied him back on his feet.

“You’ve got this, Connor.” Hank murmured.

Connor turned and faced Hank, then grabbed the man and pulled him into a hug.

“Please come back tomorrow!” He said, pleadingly.

“Tomorrow.” Hank affirmed, tightening the hug and patting Connor’s back softly.

Connor slowly pulled away from the hug and resumed facing Dr. Khatri.

“I’m ready.”

 

He followed the man through the door into the ward, stopping himself from looking back to Hank as the door slid shut.


	8. Chapter 8

 

The bed was soft and formed comfortably to Connor’s shape as he sat on the foot of it.

 

The ‘observation’ section of being admitted had been awkwardly fast, due to the fact that most of it consisted of blood pressure, heart rate, and blood tests, none of which applied to him, a medical history, of which he had none, and whether there were any medication recommendations that could be made immediately, which, again, didn’t apply.

Doctor Khatri had spent some time talking to Connor, who had gone through his symptoms, remembering to stop and breathe, and taking a few times to pause, pace, and ground himself, of which Doctor Khatri had been understanding, patient, and helpful. Doctor Khatri confirmed with him that the current diagnosis they were looking at was indeed PTSD. Connor was told that he would receive a timetable containing group sessions that would possibly be beneficial to him, and he would see Doctor Khatri every weekday after lunchtime.

He had been assigned a bedroom. Every bedroom was a lockable door with a small room, containing a desk, a smell bedside table with drawers, and a single bed. A door in one corner lead to a small en-suite. The en-suite door was cut at a sloping angle at the top. This intrigued Connor, until he realised with a heavy sinking feeling, that it was a safety measure, to stop a belt or rope from being able to be suspended from the door.

 

Connor had spent some time unpacking his clothes into the small drawers on the dresser. Most of them were his own clothes. The joggers and t-shirt turned out not to be some old clothes of Hank’s, but rather a pair of soft pyjamas, which hid a warm looking pair of slippers, and a scribbled note saying, “ _I bought these when you moved in to make you feel comfortable, but you didn’t seem interested in new clothes, so I never gave them to you. But if you spend your whole time in your normal clothes in there, people are going to think you’re fucking weird, so wear these at night. -Hank”_

Connor placed the note on the bedside table to remind him and felt a little bit bad for the fact that Hank had bought him a gift to help him integrate weeks ago, and he’d made him feel like he wouldn’t be interested. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested, but every time he thought of removing his jacket in front of people, he felt this tremendous wave of guilt, that he didn’t _deserve_ to integrate. He deserved to stand out, to wear the symbol that had kept people surround him aware that he wasn’t a real person for so long. He _didn’t get_ to shed that skin after the damage he’d caused.

 

He took the jacket off.

 

He put the jacket back on again.

 

He repeated this action a couple of times, clearly fighting with the discomfort. He took the pyjamas into the bathroom and changed completely. They were gentle against his skin, very different from his normal clothes. He stepped in front of the bathroom mirror.

A man in a beanie-hat, grey top, and faux-leather coat stared back at him. Himself, dressed as he was when he was hunting down Markus at Jericho. The reflection raised a gun, and the lips moved.

_“You’re coming with me!”_

 

He spun away from the mirror and rushed back into his other clothes, hastily throwing his jacket back on and retying his tie. He folded the clothes carefully and put them into the drawers beside the bed. He folded the bag down and slid it under the bed. He paced the centre of the room for a few minutes, taking deep breaths and waiting for the LED on the side of his head to come down from the distressing flashing red back to blue.

 

He began to feel calmer and peeked around the bathroom door and into the mirror, breathing a sigh of relief to see his own, current, uniformed reflection looking back at him.

He stepped back into the bedroom, turning off the lights for the evening, and sitting on the edge of the bed he shuffled backwards until his back was against the wall, and closed his eyes.

Markus. He’d promised Hank he’d call Markus tonight.

 

A key clicked outside the bedroom door, the frosted window cleared, and someone looked in, the lack of light meaning they were merely a silhouette in the window. Connor startled.

“Can I help you?” He said to the person peering through the window.

“Just a routine check. You having trouble sleeping?” The shadow replied.

“No… Uh… I’m…” He stopped. If the person doing the check did not know he didn’t really asleep, then they did not know he was an android. His LED was on the opposite side of his body to the door, and the darkness probably meant that they couldn’t make out his clothes. “I’m just settling down for the night now, I’ve just got here.”

“Gotcha. Well, goodnight.” Came the reply, and the window frosted up again with a click.

Connor found the whole experience fairly unsettling, wondering if they were going to watch him like this all the time. He decided to lay down and close his eyes to avoid further unnecessary attention.

 

His LED cycled yellow against the pillow as he attempted to connect with Markus. Just as he started to get ready to disconnect, he heard his voice.

“Connor! I’ve been trying to contact you, but you never respond!” Markus’ voice was warm, cheerful. “I’ve even tried to contact the colleague you decided to stay with, Hank! How are you?!”

“Hey, Markus. Yeah, I’m sorry, I’ve been…” He stopped short of saying ‘busy’ “I’ve been avoiding you, Markus.”

“Oh.” Markus sounded hurt. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“No, _I’m_ sorry.” Connor was quick to respond. “I was being unfair, and…” Connor’s voice froze momentarily. “I… I’ve not been doing so well.”

“Oh? Is something wrong, Connor?” Markus asked, with a clear tone of concern.

“Well, I’m in hospital.” Connor said, as calmly as he could.

“Has something happened to Hank?”

“Uh… No. _I’m_ in hospital, Markus.”

There was a pause. Connor wondered if he had lost the connection, but his interface told him it was still open.

“What?” Markus said, cursing himself immediately afterwards. “Why are you in hospital?”

“They’re saying it’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Connor tried to remain short and to the point. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but I promise- “

“Woah, wait a minute.” Markus butted in. “Who said that it sounds ridiculous?”

Connor was silent, in thought for a moment. “Actually…” His mind came up blank.

Markus gave a knowing chuckle. “Sounds like you’re giving _yourself_ a hard time.”

Connor sighed. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“I wish you’d spoken to me sooner.” Markus said, sounding a bit more serious. “I don’t know that I could have made this any easier for you, but you didn’t have to do this alone.”

“I didn’t realise anything was really wrong, until it had gotten to this point.” Connor spoke quietly.

“Connor, you were literally designed to do the opposite of what you did that day. There was no possible way you were going to get through a change as drastic as _you_ did without some kind of trauma.” Markus remarked. “Primarily, I had been trying to contact you because you’re a friend, and I wanted to keep in touch, but also, after this all ended, you went back to a life with little interaction with your own people. If anyone was going to struggle to adapt to becoming deviant, it was going to be you.”

“I don’t _deserve_ friendship with other androids after what I did, _especially_ not you, and I don’t deserve to adapt!” Connor huffed.

“Connor, that’s not true, I…” Markus fell silent for a moment. “I don’t know how to make you feel worthy of those things, but you _are_ worthy of them… Send me your location, I would prefer to talk to you in person, if that would be OK?”

Connor felt himself stiffen, after weeks of avoiding Markus, and dwelling on his own guilt, the last thing he wanted was to see him again. Still, he thought of Hank, telling him to contact Markus, and felt that Hank would probably think he _should_ see Markus, so he relented.

“OK. I’ll send it to you now.”

“Thank you. I’ll come see you tomorrow. Goodnight, Connor.”

 

The call disconnected, and Connor felt apprehensive of the impending visit, but overall, he had to agree that Hank was right to tell him to contact Markus. He did feel marginally better.

 

He kept his eyes closed and initiated stasis mode, curling himself up on top of the white linen of the soft bed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short Hank-focused chapter!

Hank turned the engine off as he pulled the car up outside home. He leaned back into the seat, let out a long groan, and closed his eyes.  
This definitely wasn’t how he foresaw this day ending, or any day for that matter. The last thing he’d ever want for Connor was to have even a hint of the turmoil that he’d been having right now. Hank had never even entertained the idea that his android friend could become mentally unwell.

So many thoughts were swimming in his mind, but he couldn’t help constantly returning to the ones that bothered him most.

 _Did I cause this? Did he learn to cope this way from me?_ He thought _. Did my own way of thinking cause him to stay so silent? Did his knowledge of my own suicidal tendencies make him think that was a normal thing to feel? Would he have been better off without me?_

Sumo broke the spiral of bad thoughts in Hank’s head by whining softly and nudging Hanks hand lying limply near the gearbox. Hank reopened his eyes and fussed the dogs head before stepping out the car and letting Sumo out. He let the dog bound into the house before him.

He hung up his jacket, walked to the fridge and pulled out a beer, freeing the lid from the bottle and pulling gulps hungrily from within. He dropped the bottle loudly onto the counter top, leaning forward onto the counter.

 

Connor wasn’t always talkative, he was quite unobtrusive, and yet Hank thought the house felt overly quiet in his absence.

 

He lifted his beer and took it with him to the living room, sinking into his usual place on the chair. Again, he chugged big mouthfuls of beer, before resting the bottle against his chest.

The sofa looked empty.

Hank looked to the snoozing dog, preferring his bed over a sofa that didn’t contain his favourite android. He looked to the door. He stepped up, finished his beer, and threw his jacket back on, sliding out the door and pulling it shut loudly behind him.

 

The bar was overly warm and a few pairs of eyes studied him with caution as his stepped in and walked to an empty stool. He supposed he was remembered, though he hadn’t visited since that night Connor came and collected him. He felt that he was viewed as the reason an android had come into their sacred ground – one who ended up having such a prominent part in the revolution, so less.  
The “no androids” sign still sat in the window, no longer legally enforceable, but a clear political stand that served as a warning to androids. _You’re still not welcome here_. It said in loud unwritten words.

Hank mumbled at the bartender and a glass of whiskey appeared before him. He looked around him at his surroundings. Even the people who would smile and say hello to him in the past had turned to face away from him. Hank was painfully conscious of the discomfort his presence was causing people. He downed his drink in one mouthful. These weren’t his people anymore.

 

Barely a few minutes after stepping in, he stepped out, fairly sure he’d caught someone calling him “android fucker” as the door closed behind him.  
The cold in the air felt like a stab to his chest as the insult was uttered. He pulled his coat tighter and wandered towards home, stopping first at a convenience store.

He stepped up to the counter with a bottle of Black Lamb whiskey, and they seemingly-knowingly popped it into a thin paper back for him.

 

A few moments later he stumbled back through his front door, half of his whiskey still in his hand, to a soft grunt from Sumo as he stirred from his slumber, before seeing Hank alone, plonking his head back down and closing his eyes again. Hank chuckled.  
“Fucking traitor.” He said, leaning down and scratching scruffily across the dog’s body. Sumo shifted comfortably under Hank’s loving affections and slid back into his dreams.

 

The dark nectar he’d always loved burned lightly as he swallowed from the bottle. It had been so long. He chugged again. And again.

 

He settled in the kitchen, relapsing to his old photo of Cole. He felt a pang on regret that he didn’t have a photo of Connor as he removed 5 of the 6 bullets from the chamber of his gun. He felt like he should have a photo to say goodbye to, in the event that he finally got to say hello to the boy waiting for him in the other photo.

He took several more swallows from the bottle, the contents shrinking generously as it slipped down his throat. Placing it on the table and spinning the chamber back into his gun, he leaned the cold steel against his temple, his heart racing, the room pounding and swirling madly. He pushed the gun into his skin and squeezed.

 

The gun clicked. Failure. He’d lost again.

 

His blood pressure plummeted and he felt the room turn sideways, the cool kitchen floor colliding with his side.

 

His world faded to black.


	10. Chapter 10

Connor’s night was filled with 15 minutely noises of his window clicking clear and frosted as a regular inspection seemed to occur. It startled him every time, rousing him from stasis to high-anxiety, from which he would slowly calm, only for a repeat occurrence at the next interval.

As a result, he regained power painfully slowly. Deciding to give up on charging altogether at 7am when the inspections were joined by the general hustle and bustle of a waking ward, in an auditory quest to keep Connor in high alert.

 

He almost cursed the fact he’d agreed to having his auditory processors set to be permanently active. He understood that it might end up being necessary, but right now it was just causing him a problem that couldn’t be solved.

 

He contemplated asking Hank if he had any ear defenders that he could bring to him for at night, but remembered the note with his night clothes, alerting him of the possibility of being seen as weird, and reminding him that he couldn’t do the one thing Hank had already said would reduce that possibility.

He thought of the hallucination in the mirror, curling tighter on the bed, and wrapping his arms around himself comfortingly.

His morning notifications popped up in his vision.

 

**_ 0700 Wake Hank _**

**_ 0701 Feed Sumo _**

**_ 0703 FRIDAY Take out recycling (beer bottles) _**

**_ 0705 Breakfast _**

**_ 0715 Wake Hank again if necessary _**

**_ 0720 Collect mail _**

**_ 0730 Remind Hank to check his phone for missed calls from work _**

**_ 0740 Change Suit _**

**_ 0800 Get in the car for work, drive if Hank is hungover _**

Connor slowly dismissed each notification, realising it had dashed any chance of a pleasant mood that day.

 

Opening his eyes, Connor stood from the bed and turned to straighten up the sheets, the beginning of the daylight glowing a dim blue through a crack in the curtains. He opened the door and peered out into the corridor. A few people, some human, some android, in nurse’s uniforms seemed to be walking to and from their morning tasks at the end of the corridor. Connor walked down slowly, remembering that he had seen a communal seating area on the way in.

 

The communal area consisted of a large white room with several circular tables surrounded by chairs, with the far wall consisting entirely of windows, save for a door in the middle leading out into a garden. A gentleman in night clothes sat in the garden smoking a cigarette. Connor decided to stay in the warm indoors. Somewhere in a room nearby, someone was playing with a radio, flicking from station to station, never settling on one broadcast.

 

He sat at one of the circular tables. A staff member eyed him up and down, asking for his name, before chattering to another nurse as they walked away from the communal space and into an office just to the side. Connor followed their footsteps with his eyes. The office had a glass window, and the door remained open. A large board was on one wall, with a list of names. Seeing ‘Connor Anderson’ on the list, next to a number that matched the one on his room door, he realised it was a list of patients. There was a matrix of acronyms across the top of the board, and various ticks and numbers. He watched as one of the nurses who had spoken to him drew a little blue circle, and a little blue triangle next to his name.

He wasn’t particularly certain how he felt about that. He figured they were trying to make sure other staff were aware instead of gawking at the android patient when they saw him but being singled out like that on the board made him feel uneasy. He’d have preferred that they just write “(android)” beside his name. Reducing him to a couple of coloured shapes seemed infantile.

A breeze tickled the back of his neck as the garden door opened and closed. The faint smell of cigarette smoke touched Connor’s nostrils as the gentleman from outside wandered in.

“Staff don’t have their break on the ward. They leave and come back afterwards.” The man said.

Connor did not know how to respond. He turned to see who the man was talking to. Tired grey eyes looked directly at Connor.

**_ Robert Gus _**

**_ Birth: 05/02/1998 // Unemployed _**

**_ Criminal Record: Assault, Resisting Arrest, Public Indecency _**

“I’m telling you that you can’t take your break there. This is a patient area. Fuck off! I don’t understand why androids get a break anyway!”

“Oh!” The penny dropped. Connor raised his eyebrows. “I’m not staff! I was admitted last- “

“Admitted? Why would an android be admitted here?!” Robert grabbed at the lapels of Connor’s jacket and lifted Connor to his feet. “You’ve been sent to _watch_ us!”

Connor placed his hands atop the fists curled into his jacket and attempted to free himself, but Robert’s grip was vice-like. He struggled but the man brought a swift knee into his chest. Connor’s knees buckled as his vision flashed error messages. The man threw Connor down and he managed to land on one knee but was swiftly taken off-balance as a foot met the side of his head.

Connor landed on his side, his vision awash with error messages, his LED flashing red, but more importantly he felt like each collision made his chassis scream. It was an indescribable sensation in which he felt dread for every further collision Robert’s foot made against his head and chest. It felt like his body was splitting apart with every new kick.

**_ Physical conflict detected: Evasive action advised. _**

Connor denied his body’s desperate plea to retaliate. He didn’t want to fight the vulnerable man. He curled himself up as his stress level soared to 80%. He thought he heard sirens and was sure he saw someone trying to pull Robert away. His vision went hazy.

 

Zen Gardens were supposed to have a calming sensation, but every time Connor saw this one, he felt sick. Again, he saw himself and Amanda, talking. He tried to concentrate but the shouting and screeching siren made it difficult to even process what he was seeing.

He tried to step away from the figures, but it seemed that it didn’t matter was direction he chose, the terrain moved, rather than his own form, and he was stood side by side with Amanda and himself.

“Connor, can you hear me?” A single, lady’s voice rang through clearly, accompanied by the siren. The fading shouting suggested that Robert had finally been restrained and one of them was being removed from the environment.

“I- I- ca- an- he- ear- y- you.” He heard his words echoing back to him. Glitched, broken, like a computer with RAM issues, his voice hung, and crackled, and gapped. He didn’t seem to have enough processing power for his speech program to run effectively.

He rebooted before he could hear the nurse speak again.

 

Connor came around on the floor of the communal area. The siren had stopped. Somewhere far away he was sure he could hear shouting. Some nurses were standing on the other side of the room, and another nurse was sat beside him on the floor.

He sat up, some errors popped up in his vision, detailing damages. Fortunately, nothing that he wouldn’t self-repair. He looked at the floor, where smears of thirium signified where he’d laid.

 _Pain_. He recalled the beating. _I think I just felt pain. I don’t think I like pain._

He looked to the nurse at his side. She smiled.

“You’re back now!” She said, a slight crack in her voice.

“I’m sorry. I heard you, but it was too late to do anything. My reboot must have already initiated.” Connor felt embarrassed by the crowd.

“I’m not even going to pretend that I understood that, but the important thing is that you’re back.” She fiddled with her sleeves, they covered her hands and she curled her fingers over the tip of each sleeve.

“Thank you for trying to speak to me. I’m sorry to have caused all this fuss!”

Connor stepped to his feet tenderly. His insides felt twisted and unnatural. He swayed a little. He stepped forward and lost his balance.

The nurse caught his arm and steadied him. Giving a yelp as her hands curled around his arm. Connor looked at her, curious.

“Are you hurt?” He asked her.

“It’s nothing!” She said quickly. Stepping back to allow Connor to find his own balance again. She worried her sleeves.

Connor gently took her arm, lifting her sleeve, to show fiery red burns across her palm. He hissed through his teeth.

“Shit! Were you touching me?! There’s a surge of power when I reboot during these episodes.”

She nodded. “You stopped replying, so I tried to shake you, then...”

Connor dropped her hand and ran his hands into his hair, making fists full of hair and tugging it. His head was still screaming. His mouth detected thirium from a split in his lip.

“I’m sorry! I think I’m going to go back to my room!” Connor announced and took off back to his room, not even turning to look behind him.

 

Connor slammed the door behind him as he raced into his room. He could still hear shouting on the ward. People were beginning to wake up, birds were beginning to make noise outside his window, that radio still tuned from station to station, a television played somewhere. Connor covered his ears with his hands and paced the middle of the room.

The sound permeated through his fingers and continued on a more muffled scale. He hummed monotonously to drown out the sound until he didn’t feel quite so overwhelmed.

 

The flashback had drained him. The beating still echoed from every mark on his body. The bathroom mirror told a story of a busted lip and eyebrow, a swollen patch beneath one eye suggested some casing damage. They would heal, in time, but they were woefully visible in the meantime. Blue scabs sat where the thirium was working on healing him, if they had been red, Connor would easily have mistaken himself for someone who had been in a bar brawl.

 

He took a piece of tissue and moistened it under the tap, pushing it against the scab on his lip. A sharp sting radiated through his face. He rubbed his chest, a dull heavy ache down his entire body.

_Why am I feeling pain?!_

He tossed the tissue into the bin and returned to the bed, curling up and feeling a sob escape him.

He’d hurt someone. He hadn’t meant to, but he had. He was sure he’d mentioned that the surges were a problem to the doctor, but having been here only one night, he guessed the information hadn’t gotten around yet.

He didn’t want to think about it. Every time he thought back to the nurse, the pain got worse, but inside him instead of on the surface. It made his entire being ache just to think of what he’d done.

He sniffled and rubbed his face with the blanket, leaving marks of thirium on the sheet from the wounds on his face. He watched it slowly evaporate, leaving just wet patches from tears.

His LED switched idly between yellow and red, with no forecast for blue to return anytime soon.

He laid there for a couple of hours, staring at his hands, ignoring the clicking of the window at inspection times.

 

Someone knocked at Connor’s door.

“Who is it?” He asked, his voice wavering as he spoke.

“It’s Sally.” Came the voice. It was the nurse he’d hurt. “Can I come in?”

“I don’t know.” Connor said. “I’m worried I’ll hurt you again.”

“I promise not to touch you. Even if you pass out on me again.”

Connor walked to the door and opened it, stepping back quickly and sitting back on the bed, his back against the wall, his legs crossed. He grabbed the duvet and draped it across his knees, picking idly at a blemish in the fabric.

Sally walked up to the whiteboard above his desk and wrote her name under a label saying, ‘Reporting Nurse’. Her sleeves were back on her wrists, her palms wrapped in bandages. Connor winced.

“This just means if you need to speak to someone outside of any appointments you have, you should come to me.” She said cheerfully. Connor nodded, with absolutely zero intention of approaching her again once she left his room. She read it in his eyes, and the yellow disc on his temple, and leaned her back against the desk.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, Connor?” She asked with care.

“I’m not going to need to speak to you outside of appointments.” Connor spoke. “I intend to stay in here where people can’t get hurt!”

“Accidents happen, Connor. I’m not upset with you. You need to forgive yourself.”

“I can’t!” Connor almost yelped the words, surprising himself as they escaped. “Everyone else is so intent on forgiving me _all the time_. _Someone_ needs to hold me accountable for my actions.”

“Connor imagine if a friend had done this, instead of you. They’d passed out and then someone touched them and got a shock. What would you say to them?” Sally enquired.

“It’s highly unlikely. Reboots aren’t a common occurrence in other androids, and even then, they aren’t usually accompanied by a surge...” Connor tried to imagine Markus in his position. “I guess I’d tell them it wasn’t their fault, they couldn’t control the reboot, the surge, or the person touching them. They didn’t do anything _wrong_... Oh.” Connor looked confused. “Why can’t I do that to myself?”

Sally laughed. “Exactly! It won’t happen overnight, but keep reminding yourself, you didn’t do anything _wrong._ ”

Connor gave a lopsided smile. “Thank you.”

Sally gave a thumbs up and left Connor to himself. He waited a few moments before stepping back out into the ward, desperate not to let his earlier experience get the better of him.

 

 


End file.
